Leonard Jackson, 53, is arraigned in Superior Court, in Bridgeport,...

Gwendolyn Brantley, daughter of Stella Brantley, outside of Superior Court, in Bridgeport, Conn. Aug. 16th, 2012 following the arraignment of Leonard Jackson. Jackson, 53, is charged with the murder of Stella Brantley, whose body was found in Seaside Park on Oct. 30, 1980.

Leonard Jackson, 53, who has been serving a prison term for an unrelated crime, was brought to the Golden Hill Street courthouse, where he is expected to be arraigned Thursday morning on a murder charge, police said

After appointing a public defender for him, Judge Robert Devlin continued Jackson's case to Sept. 19. At that time, state prosecutors will have to present evidence to support their contention Jackson should be tried for murder.

"Thank you sir," Jackson told the judge as he was led away by judicial marshals.

Brantley's body was found naked from the waist down, lying face down in the grass in the park. The case remained unsolved until recently when a sample of DNA evidence taken from the victim's body came back as a match for Jackson after it was submitted by the Police Department's Cold Case Unit to the State Police Forensic Lab. Jackson is an inmate at the Garner Correctional Center.

According to the arrest warrant affidavit of Detective Heitor Teixeira, when Jackson was confronted with the DNA match, he admitted killing Brantley.

He said he and Brantley had gone to a pool hall the previous night on East Main Street. But what started out as a nice walk soon turned "ugly" in Jackson's words.

He began yelling at her for dating another man and slapped her. She slapped him back.

"I kept hitting her and just went crazy," he states in the affidavit. "She was just lying there on the ground, lying prone."

Brantley's family were in the courtroom during the brief hearing, but left afterward without comment.

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The autopsy report states that Brantley had multiple abrasions, but died of strangulation.

The affidavit states that Jackson said he couldn't remember if he strangled Brantley, but when he left Seaside Park she was still lying on the ground. He then told detectives he was sorry about what happened."